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Democratic Republic of Congo: the future is bright
Antoine Roger Lokongo
“Ladies and gentlemen, the runaway in Kinshasa is
rough and so you might feel a bit uncomfortable. But
there is nothing to worry about.”
I have heard the pilot repeat that same mantra again
and again whenever my plane takes off from Kinshasa.
It is only this time that I have managed to put it
into perspective.: that the situation in the
Democratic Republic of Congo is difficult in every
aspects, but the future is bright. Kabila’s country
has come a long way, as far as the transitional
process is concerned. It was in 1990, the year that
one of his 7 year mandate came to an end that Mobutu
Sese Seko warmed up to multiparty democracy and
promised to organise free and fair elections since he
took power in a coup in 1961, after betraying Patrice
Lumumba. Mobutu stayed on for another 7 years without
any mandate until Laurent Désiré Kabila kicked him out
in 1997. The rest is history.
Now the democratisation process in Congo has gained an
irreversible momentum, and President Joseph Kabila
seems to be winning where his predecessors failed.
Except his slain father after coming to power in 1997,
gave a clear time table which was going to culminate
in general elections in 1999, had Rwandan and Ugandan
troops, supported by well known superpowers and
multinationals, not invaded Congo on 2 august 1998.
This war of aggression lasted for five years, during
which Congo’s natural and mineral resources were
systematically looted by the invaders with the
complicity of some Congolese themselves and the
so-called Congolese of Rwandan origin, otherwise known
as the Banyamulenge.
Congo entered what is hitherto known as the “Third
Republic” following the solemn promulgation of the new
constitution by President Joseph Kabila on 18 february
2006, in front of the president of the African Union,
Denis Sassou Nguesso and the South African President
Thabo Mbeki, who, in 2003, hosted the intercongolese
dialogue which culminated in a peace deal that sealed
the end of the war (formally) and a power sharing
transitional government between Joseph Kabila and
former Congolese warlords to prepare Congo’s first
multi-party elections in 40 years. Patrice Lumumba was
the only elected leader in Congo since independence.
Assassinated in the way that we know, democracy was
also decapitated.
In his promulgation speech, President Joseph Kabila
said that the way was now wide open for Congolese
people to go to the polls in 40 years and invited
Congolese political actors not to pursue any red
herrings as in the past since independence.
“The long transition is over. The time for an
equitable and balanced share of power on the basis of
political bargaining and arrangement is now a thing of
the past.
Everything will now depends on the choices the people
themselves will make. Let the people now freely choose
their leaders. Let us solve once for all the problem
of lack of legitimacy at the top [of the state].
“The way is totally prepared for elections. Nothing
can stop us now from going to elections. I invite all
political actors, for the sake of respect for our
people to bow to the ruling of the ballots”, he said.
The current constitution has been put to an referendum
and approved by 84,31% of the electorate. It gives
Congo a new legal framework, limits the president (
whose age limit is reduced from 35 to 33) to two
five-year term and he names the prime minister from
largest party. The parliament has to be elected and
the judiciary is independent. Provinces are increased
from 11 to 26 and power is decentralised. Provinces
can keep 40% of the revenues.
The promulgation ceremony took place at the same
historic parliamentary building where King Baudoin of
Belgium and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba signed the
independence of Congo on 30 June 1960; followed by
Lumumba’s most acclaimed speech that sealed his fate
and behind which Laurent Désiré Kabila’s body lies in
a coffin draped in the same blue flag ( symbolising
peace and prosperity) with six small yellow stars on
the left (representing the then six rich provinces of
Congo) and one big yellow star in the middle
symbolising unity, that was hoisted on 30 June 1960.
Now the new constitution has re-given Congo the
Luluabourg flag which was designed when Lumumba’s
traitors led by Mobutu and pro-lumumbists met in
Luluabourg (now Kananga) to seal reconciliation,
charter a new constitution (which virtually is not
different from the recently promulgated one) and
design a new flag. The current flag comprises the
colour blue to symbolise peace, crossed by a red line
and hedged by two yellow lines red to recall the
blood of the martyrs of independence and the 5
millions massacred as a result of the war of
aggression and yellow for the vast mining deposits of
Congo. The country also re-adopted Mobutu’s coat of
arms, a leopard head sitting on a crossed spear and a
javelin surrounded by two palm leaves, all sitting on
embroidered motto: Justice, Paix, Travail (Justice,
Peace, Work). The country’s national football team has
been renamed “Léopard” instead of “Simba” (lion).
Laurent Désiré Kabila restored the first
democratically elected government led by Patrice
Lumumba in 1960. It comprised the head of a lion
sitting on three arms locked together, surrounded by
two palm leaves, all sitting on an all sitting on
embroidered moto: Democracy, Justice, Unity. It was
one last very painful concession for nationalists who
had to swallow all these changes and to see the
national coulours which Lumumba and Laurent Désiré
Kabila defended up to the supreme sacrifice, be
confined to the national archives. But who knows?
Should the nationalists win with a majority in
parliament, a lot of these laws could be reversed.
What matters now, they say is to work for the triumph
of the ideals and republican values for which Lumumba
and Laurent Désiré Kabila gave their lives.
The international community’s financial and military
support to the process has been remarkable, especially
through bodies such as the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC)
with its 17,000 UN peacekeepers and the CIAT (Comité
International d’Accompagnement à la Transition) in
which all ambassadors of the five members of the UN
Security Council represent their respective countries
in order to oversee the process. The European Union is
increasing its financial contribution and is sending
troops to provide security during the first
multi-party elections (SADC countries are ready to
send troops too), due in 18th of June (at least the
first round), according to the provisional time table
set up by the electoral commission. International
monitors will on the scene to monitor the voting
process.
But already, the Congolese people are upset by the
resumption of war in Rutsuru area, near the Rwandan
border, waged by General Nkundabatware, a Congolese
Tutsi of Rwandan origin, wanted by the International
Criminal Court; as well as by the position the Belgian
government and other westerners have taken, putting
pressure on the transitional parliament to adopt
blocked lists instead of open lists (here political
parties contest elections as candidates and not
individual leaders of those political parties. Quite
unseen even in western democracies themselves) to
give the minorities a chance to win (by minorities,
they means Congolese of Rwandan origin). In Congo we
are 450 tribes and each one is a minority. Why should
the Banyamulenge or the Banyarwanda, as we call them,
enjoy a special treatment? Luckily enough, the
parliament rejected that proposal and the Banyamulenge
or the Banyarwanda are all up in arms. One of them,
Azarias Ruberwa, a vice-president in the transitional
government has just returned from a surprise visit to
President Paul Kagame in Kigali. Shortly after,
L’Avenir, a Kinshasa-based daily, revealed on
26.02.2006 that “there a movement of arms in the east,
especially in the territory Minembwe, near the Rwandan
border, which Banyamulenge or the Banyarwanda wants to
turn into a Tutsiland”.
President Kabila has consequently shifted his “Etat
Major” - Staff Headquarters - to Bukavu in the east
to flush out all pockets of insurgency before the
elections.
“The hidden agenda is no longer hidden,” the paper
revealed, adding that while in Rwanda Ruberwa felt
more Rwandan than Congolese. He even dared to make a
statement regarding the recent International Court of
Justice’s verdict in favour of Rwanda (on the basis
that Rwanda, like the US, does not recognise the
Court) against Congo.
“It’s official. Rwanda defeated [us] at the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague and
since this is an internationally recognised court of
justice, the DRC has no alternative other than
conceding defeat,” Ruberwa, a vice president in Congo,
said on 21.02.2006, in an exclusive interview with
the Rwandan daily, The New Times.
On 19.12.2006, the ICJ ruled in favour of Congo
against Uganda. The latter was found guilty of
illegally invading Congo, of perpetrating a genocide
of 5 millions Congolese and of plundering Congo’s
natural and mineral resources. Uganda was consequently
ordered to compensate Congo. Kinshasa is said to be
requesting the sum of $10 billion from Uganda, which
is nothing compared to harm Uganda has done to the
people of Congo, their country and the amount of
wealth looted, and still looting through the networks
it left in place.
This ruling was a hot issue during the election
campaign in Uganda and when Museveni was declared a
winner on 27.02.2006, the French daily, La Libération,
said that “the Bismark of the Great Lakes Region has
now been re-elected for a forced third term”, alluding
to Museveni’s invasion of Congo.
“Since Museveni miliatrily supported Laurent Désiré
Kabila to oust Mobutu in 1997, he came back as an
invader. Despite international community’s pressure,
Museveni has never really renounced his expansionist
endeavours in the territory of his biggest neighbour
in the east [the DRC]. The trafficking of minerals is
going on unabated between the two countries, in favour
of the elite in power in Kampala.
“Branded as the African ‘Machiavelli’ by a local
analyst, Yoweri Museveni has lived up to this title,
the British and the Americans’creature in the Great
Lakes Region”.
Well, you have heard it from the horse’s own mouth.
But Congo, subjected to an arms embargo since 1990,
strives to become politically, economically,
militarily and democratically stable in order to shake
off that sad image of being its neighbours’walk over.
The Congolese people are just a stone’s throw from
getting there. So the future is bright. Heaven will
never forgive any wrecker this time.
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